Author Archive for Deb

The Mill on the… dirt road.

Published
by
Deb
on July 5, 2008
in Events, Fibre and Uncategorized
. 0 Comments

Once upon a time an intrepid band of hookers (rug-hookers, that is) ventured into the wilds of Markhamville to explore the workings of a fibre mill. OK, Markhamville isn’t exactly “the wilds”, but it is out in the countryside. And we only had to travel the gravel road for a few yards. Still, we were intrepid.

The Legacy Lane Fibre Mill is owned by two sisters, Alyson Scott and Amy Tonning. They process all kinds of fibre, including their own alpaca, raised on their farm nearby.

fleece going into the picker
Alyson took us through the process of preparing the fleece and spinning the yarn. We started with the picker awhere the fleece is opened up.

picked fleece

Here’s the fibre turned into loose fluff. After the fibre is taken from this room, they’re able to take the heavy, coarse fibres that fall to the floor right to the felting machine, since the floor and the table of the felter are the same size!

I didn’t get a picture of the de-hairer, where coarse fibres and vegetable matter are removed. Some fibres, like buffalo, need to go through the process several times to get to the good stuff.

prepped fleece going into the carder
After the fibres are dehaired and blended, it’s off to the big carding machine. Fluff goes in, batts or roving come out. Colors or different fibres can be laid side by side or alternated to acheive different effects in the batt or roving.

making roving

To spin yarn, the roving has to be drafted some more. This machine also measures the roving so equal lengths can be produced for spinning multiple plies.

bucket of roving


Here, Amy takes us through spinning
spinning machine
spinning

and plying.
plying

They can produce a wide range of yarn weights as well as batts, roving and felt. They make rugs from the felt, and insoles. I have a mat of their felt on my bedroom floor, it’s soft and warm, and the cat and dog love to lay on it.
They had a selction of their products laid out for us and I brought home a bag of roving. It’s an alpaca/soy/merino mix. Should be interesting to spin. I’ve never tried to spin alpaca before and I’m looking forward to that adventure.
goodies

Speaking of alpaca, we headed over to the farm for a bit. Unfortunately, it was raining and I din’t take my camera out, but here’s a couple of shots of the yearlings they had up at the mill.

yoo hoo!
hello there!

(I have some more pics taken by Anita, but I can’t seem to uplaod them at the moment)

Fine and Fancy

Published
by
Deb
on June 1, 2008
in Lace and knitting
. 3 Comments

Fancy Fullness detail
I’m inordinately proud of this bit of lace — it was the only knit-along that I’ve actually kept up with! Birgit’s Ravelinkdesigns are always lovely, and the projects she designs for the Knitting-Delight yahoo group seem to generally be on the smallish side, scarves as opposed to very large stoles or shawls. I love this group and the way Birgit has set it up. It’s like making your way through a lace workbook. She starts each section with a basic technique complete with a very simple sample and a page to attach the sample or a photo to. Each new technique introduced in a project has it’s own instruction set. She began last fall with the very basics (I missed a couple before I signed up) and is working slowly up in difficulty. I’m not an absolute beginner in lace, but I’m close enough that I really appreciate her lessons, both in structure and presentation. If she decides to publish it as a workbook or lesson set, I will definitely recommend it.
Fancy Fullness Shawl
I’m not terribly fond of the yarn, though. It’s Knit Picks’ Shadow in the (now discontinued) Campfire Heather colourway. I like the yarn itself fine, I’ve used it before and will definitely use it again, but the colours in this particular heather make my stomach wobbly. It’s got lots of bright orange, some reddish bits, and a dark green in it. The contrast of the orange/red and the green is just too much for my tender sensibilities ;) Seriously, though, the first evening I worked on it I kept having to look away. I seem to have gotten accustomed to it, though and my mother loves it so I kept at it. I gave it to her as a belated Mother’s Day present (the final clue didn’t come out until the week after) and she’s already worn it twice. It actually came out quite a good size. I blocked the bejeebers out of it, and apparently I knit a lot looser than I thought.
Fancy Fullness Shawl

pattern: Fancy FullnessRavelink by Birgit Freyer
yarn: KnitPick’s Shadow, Campfire Heather
needles: 3.25mm circular, Knitpick’s Harnomy
mods: Even though I crochet, I really didn’t want it on the edge of this shawl. I added an extra eyelet row to match the inner border and bound off with my new favorite bind-off for lace: k, k, k2togTBL, then k, k2tog TBL to the end.

If I had finished it as Birgit wrote it, I probably would have used only one skein of yarn, but since I wanted to add a row I did get into the second skein. I spit-spliced the joins so they’re pretty much invisible and no lumpy bits.

So, Mum finally has a knit shawl, I have a finished project I’m very happy with, and though she doesn’t know it yet, Kelly’s got some yarn. All 400+ yards of orange and green, which I never want to knit with again!

Last Thurday Night Rughooking group

Published
by
Deb
on May 6, 2008
in Events and Uncategorized
. 0 Comments

Title: Last Thurday Night Rughooking group
Location: Seniors\’ Centre
Description: Last group meeting until fall
Start Date: 2008-05-06
Start Time: 07-00-00
End Date: 2008-05-08
End Time: 09-00-00

How doth the little busy Bee

Published
by
Deb
on May 6, 2008
in Fibre, Rug Hooking, Spinning and Uncategorized
. 2 Comments

What a busy month April was! A bunch of different fibre events, a birthday and some shopping, too.

My birthday was last month, and my parents gave me a wonderful present — a Golding Ringspindle! It’s fabulous and beautiful. I fluffed up some wool and spun up some amazingly fine yarn. A little more practice and I’ll give that polwarth I got at London-Wul a go. I’ll post a photo as soon as I can find the basket I put it in…

The third Saturday of April (and of every month if you want to join us) was the second Anything Fibre gathering at the Sussx Artist’s Co-Op. I took a couple of bits to work on. My “Birds of a Feather” mat has reached the background filling stage and I’ve decided to embroider it instead of hooking.
birds of a feather
I also took a lace knitting piece, but I won’t be doing that again — I had to reknit a row and then I found a stitch that had dropped several rows. It was a small group this week so we sat in the cafe and enjoyed the sunshine. I really enjoy this group since there are many different crafts going on and so many things to talk about. I would like to see it happen more often, even if it’s only a small group that gathers.

I go to rug hooking twice a week most weeks, and a good thing too because for a while that was the only time I spent hooking. This month, though, there were a couple of other opprtunites to get some work in on the mats.
sjh1.jpg
First was the annual demo at the Saint John City Market. The Sussex Tea Toom Hookers and the Carnegie Hookers from Saint John go and spend a few days talking and demonstrationg and having lots of fun. I went on Thursday with D and L and we took Olive, our mascot with us. Olive is a wonderful carving my uncle Peter made of a hooker hard at work over her frame.
sjh2.jpgThere were some Carnigie hookers with us and Sande Gunning brought in lots of lovely things from her shop in Glenwood. She got in another bolt of the lovely heathered green I missed last time around so I picked up some of that along with some other beautiful wool fabrics. Of course, I had to draw up a new piece to work on that required some actual hooking.
sj-dg2.jpg
I also managed to fit in some shopping at Cricket Cove ;) I picked up some Malabrigo laceweight, and now I really get what peoople are talking about when they say this stuff is soft. Knitting with kittens, indeed! I wish I’d picked up another skein though. The price was really good, and I’m a big girl, so what I have will only make a shoulder shawl for me. I also got a skein of Kreyon sock yarn. No plans for that yet, but I’m thinking some colourwork might be nice. And I got another bamboo circular, 3mm. I passed Coles bookstore on the way back and founda couple of items on the discount table, the
Little Box of Scarves, and Hip Knits. I know a couple of people who will love the patterns in these.

sugarcamp005.jpgOne Tuesday we went to the Trites family sugar camp for some hooking. My friend Joy arranges this each year with her husband’s family, and both times I’ve gone its been an absolutely gorgeous day. There were hookers from Moncton, Saint John, Sussex, Fredericton, and Dorchester.Quite a mix for there being only about 30 of us!

sugarcamp017.jpg sugarcamp016.jpg

After walking in to the camp (it’s a bit of a walk, but a lovely one), we spent the morning hooking and chatting and having an all around good time. The Trites boys served us up a delicious lunch of buckwheat pancakes, maple baked beans, sausages and, of course, maple syrup. I picked up some maple cream for my parents (which they seem to be enjoying despite the squashing it got on the way home!), too.
sugarcamp020.jpg

You can see all the photos from the Sugar Camp here

I’ve been working on some knitting as well, but that’ll have to wait for the next post :)

Sorry About the Mess

Published
by
Deb
on May 5, 2008
in It's All About the blog
. 1 Comment

If things look a little strange around here it’s because I’m upgrading — one thing gets fixed and another gets broken. It’ll all be over soon, I promise :)

So Nice I Knit It Twice

Published
by
Deb
on April 6, 2008
in Fibre, Uncategorized and knitting
. 0 Comments

 auntyl_scarf.jpg

Mirasol Sulka. Divinely soft, unbelievably smooth, serenity in a skein. I could knit with this yarn forever.

Simple mistake rib scarf for my Aunty L, knit the first time on 6mm needles. It wasn’t as soft as it could be, plus it seemed a little short, so I frogged and reknit the whole thing on 7mm needles. In the usual run of things having to do something twice would bug the hell out of me and, in fact, I would have stopped and restarted at a much earlier stage. But I was very reluctant to stop knitting with that dreamy strip of cloud.

I really want to make something big out of this. Big Girl Knits advises that a person my size should not wear garments made of chunky yarn, but I don’t really care. I want a complete set of garments, including underwear, all made of Sulka.

I’m thinking everybody I know needs some of this stuff in their life.
And I’m the girl to knit it for them :D

Baby’s New Bonnet

Published
by
Deb
on April 1, 2008
in Uncategorized
. 1 Comment

I really seem to be all about the hats lately :)

I had another ball of Baby Bamboo and after reading about newborns needing hats for the first little while, I thought this yarn would be perfect. No sweaty little baby-pate with bamboo. A very simple hat was the thing, and one that Baby could continue to wear through the spring. My favorite hats are 2/2 rib because they’ll fit such a wide range of sizes, snug enough to stay on the littlest noggin, but not tight. I wanted it to fit from 10 to 14 or so inches, so after checking my gauge on the booties I made, I cast on 84 stitches. Six inches later I started decreasing. I had to do this twice, of course, miscalculting the first time and ending up with a wearable but very strangely shaped hat. I put the decreases in the purl sections as far as possible to maintain the rib. I could have bound off a couple of rows earlier, really, it still has a bit of a point on the top, but I’m really pretty happy with it.

green baby hat, fresh off the needles

pattern: improvised, simple 2/2 rib
yarn: Sirdar Snuggly Baby Bamboo, Willow
needles: 2.75mm circs (2)

The bamboo doesn’t close up as much as a 2/2 rib in wool, so it’s not quite as teeny as I expected, but it is unbelievably soft.

Audrey modeling the hat

Snoop really wanted to help me with the photos today.

snoop

Then suddenly lost all interest.

snoop

Quimby was more interested in the rain.

Quimby watches the rain

As for me, I’m gonna go knit   KNIT!

If at first…

Published
by
Deb
on March 31, 2008
in Uncategorized
. 1 Comment

yadda, yadda, yadda – try again.

Once I had a new hat to put on my head I decided it was time to do something about the puckery top on my silver-grey beret (Ravelink).

beretpuckery.jpg

After frogging back to the beginning of the decrease rounds, I tried a couple of things. The original decreases were 8 stitches every row. I tried 8 stitches every other row, but that wasn’t quite right either. I got good results in shaping with 6 stitches every row, but I still had those extremely crisp decrease lines that I just didn’t like anymore, so I finally went with a decrease of twelve stitches every other row.

grberet2back.jpg

One of the things that amazes me most with this yarn, Georga 100% wool, is the ways it blocks so beautifully. I had blocked the beret over a dinner plate the first time and it was gorgeous and smooth. You can see how uneven the centre portion is right after knitting, especially compared to the blocked bit.

beretpreblock.jpg

I just laid it out flat this time around and it’s not quite as smooth as the previously blocked area, but there’s still a huge difference. Most of the unevenness has disappeared and a proper blocking would certainly take care of the rest.

beretpostblock.jpg

I’m just too lazy for that.

grberet2.jpg

Yea, Verity

Published
by
Deb
on March 30, 2008
in Design Junkie, Fibre and knitting
. 1 Comment

I’ve been admiring Ysolda’s berets for some time now. I knit up a couple of Urchins (Ravelink) last fall for gifts, and Kelly has been sporting the lovely Gretel for most of the winter. As soon as I saw this pattern I knew I it was the one for me. Luckily I had some yarn in may stash that would work, because I decided I really shouldn’t buy any yarn this month (that only stuck for about half the month, but at least it kept me from going nuts, what with Kathmandu tweed close-out at Webs, odd lots and super deals at Colourmart, and a great sale at Pick-Up Sticks). It’s the same yarn I used for my silver beret, in a different colour, Georga 100% wool, this time in Aran. I really do love a yarn that knits up easily and evens out amazingly after blocking :)

veritybutton.jpg

Because it’s not as heavy as an aran-weight yarn I got slightly more stitches to the inch than the called-for gauge. I didn’t want to use a larger needle, though, as I really prefer a somewhat tightly knit fabric for most things (I used this same yarn with a 4mm needle for my silver beret). So I simply used one larger size instructions and that worked out very well for me.

verityback.jpg

The first part of the hat whipped right along. I love the petal shaping. I had one false start on the band, casting on too loosely. The linen stitch really snugs up the fabric and makes a nice dense band and that left me with a sloppy end. I restarted and joined it to the hat stitches. This part took a little longer to knit, being a slip-stitch pattern, but well worth it. Picking out the button was almost as much fun as knitting the hat! After digging through 3 generations of buttons, I found a lovely mother of pearl flat button, lovely in itself, but it doesn’t overtake the hat.

I’ve received many compliments on it, and I may just have to make another in some different yarn :)

verityflat2.jpg

pattern: Verity, by Ysolda Teague
yarn: Geoga 100% wool, Aran
needles: 4.5 mm 16″ KnitPick’s nickel circ, Aero circ, Bryspun dpns
Simple and ingenious shaping, the main portion in stockinette, fast and fun to work. As an aside, the yarn changed colour after washing. It had a definite pinkish cast to it in the ball, but that’s not visible at all now.

Booties, Baby!

Published
by
Deb
on March 18, 2008
in knitting
. 3 Comments

With new cousins popping up all over the place I have decided I need to knit some baby things. My mother bought a little outfit for a new little girl in our family and I figured that was the perfect chance to try out Saartje’s Booties, especially after seeing Kelly’s. I went with Fleegle’s seamless version, and by the third bootie I managed to achieve something decent looking.

I have a propensity to dive into patterns without fully reading them, and this time was no different. I managed the Turkish cast-on just fine. In fact, it’s easier than Judy’s Magic Cast-on since there are no twisted stitches. But, somehow, whenever I came to an increase or decrease I chose to knit the wrong type. Not just on one bootie, but two!. Finally I set the yarn and needles aside and really read the pattern. By this time I had picked up on a couple of other things that needed tweaking as I knit — I kept getting a gap where I cast on the new stitches for the straps, so I tightened that up, and finally got a nice little crocheted button hole (I discovered that I’m an even lazier knitter than I thought; I put off the button holes for two days before I finally went and dug out a crochet hook :P). So the third little bootie came out very well, and the mate knit up in no time.

Then came the button selection (yay! I love buttons!). I was warned away from the gumdrop looking ones — experinced mothers told me never to use something that looks edible :). The pink buttons were too pink and the purple buttons were too purple, except for one set that was the perfect colour, but too small (can you say Goldilocks?). I found some that looked okay, but they really aren’t what I wanted, which was little round pearl puttons. The ones I finally went with are flat. They’re cute enough, though, so on they went.

bambooties1.jpg

Yesterday they got a little wash and tomorrow they go in the mail. C’est tout fini!

Of course, baby booties are like potato chips so I had to try a few other patterns.singlebooties2.jpg

The green one is Bev’s Stay On Knit Bootie. Super easy. I used a 3-needle bind off for the front of the ankle to eliminate one seam, You could use a turkish cast-on, purling the first row and working back and forth after that to make a truly seamless bootie, but I don’t mind that single 2-1/2″ seam.

The little variegated slipper is SockPixie’s Magic Slipper. These ones are seamless, with a sole knit flat and stitches picked up and worked in the round. Cute and easy and a nice way to use up leftover sock yarn.

The light blue one is a variation of the magical bootie-from-3-squares (Susan B. Anderson has a free pattern for those on her blog). I wanted to see if I could avoid some of the seaming on these, so I made one square, then, leaving the stiches live, picked up the stitches from another edge of the square and worked a mitred triangle. It functions, and creates some interesting directional patterns too. I think I might play with the form a little more.

As for mates for these little fellas, who knows? I kinda just like them hanging on my bulletin board.

bambooties2.jpg

Bam-Booties for Jenna
 pattern: Sartje’s Booties, Fleegleized. (Ravelry links)
 yarn: Sirdar Snuggly Baby Bamboo, Babe
 needles: 2 KnitPick’s 2.5mm circ’s

I really have to say I love this yarn. It is so soft and knits up like a dream. The stitches seem to even themselves out before you even get near to blocking. I used a much smaller than recommended-needle-size. I wanted a fairly close-knit fabric for booties, but I imagine working with a 4mm needle would give you something incedibly drapey. I found myself wanting to knit a bathrobe with it! Not likely to happen. I’m a big girl and that would take way more patience that I have. Since it is so reasonbly priced, about $6 Canadian, I expect I will knit a lot more little baby things with it and maybe even a summer top or two for me.

bambooties3.jpg